Night 761
by EarthWorlder
Summary: Set in the Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Sky universe. One sleepless night from the perspective of the player-character's partner.


Z turned over in his sleep next to me, rustling our bed of straw and leaves underneath him. He mumbled incoherent, sleep-slurred words into the bedding, his orange feathers pale in the whitish-blue moonlight that filtered through the guild's window. _It must have been another nightmare_, I thought, _for the nth time this month. _At least Chatot had already done his rounds - the last time this happened he threatened to put him under supervision at night until he stopped, leaving me all alone when I went to bed.

He hadn't always been like this. When we first met, aside from the occasional headache, he'd slept and acted just fine, if a little aloof. His aura seemed alright, for the most part. Sometimes, though, his aura would take a sudden spike for the worse, radiating some sequestered feeling of dread. I hadn't bothered to ask about it, figuring it was just what he'd been through - I mean, I found him washed up on the beach, half-drowned, and claiming to be a human, of all things. It was the least of my concerns if he was kind of quiet… I felt a little guilty for dismissing the problem. I couldn't help but worry, _I should have brought it up earlier... this is my fault, isn't it? _

We'd been working as a team for two years last month. With time, we had gotten to know each other from our time together at the guild, even if we weren't sure about it, or each other, at first. Of course, he didn't have much of a past to speak of, but he had other things: courage, smarts, kindness… looks. Especially when he got all worked up; he had this glint in his eye that made the world shine a little brighter. It was almost ridiculous how easily he seemed to succeed at everything, and that wasn't even bringing up how good he was at exploring dungeons. I helped, of course, but he was the leader, navigator, finder, and he gave really good hugs, despite the small Torchic wings. He was enough to make anyone jealous. Including me.

I knew he was dealing with things, I could tell he was feeling down… I wondered if he missed home, his old one. Was that what all the headaches were about? As far as he had told me, the pains were nothing, but they had to be something.

_...was it me?_ No, it couldn't be. It was something with him, we always enjoyed each other's company. He was the only one I could tell secrets to, or be scared around, or just do silly stuff with all day. Plus, there were all the times he had saved my hide while we were exploring, too. He was the best partner I could've asked for, there was no way it was me… I heard him grunting, tossing this way and that, and it snapped me out of my worrying momentarily. It was an instinctive feeling for me - his aura was all wrong. I clenched my teeth. It was bad, really bad, so bad it was almost palpable. I wanted to hug him, and tell him it was alright, or wake him up, and… and…

...I wanted to kiss him. I gulped. I had to face these feelings I had, even if I didn't know when they started or if he liked me like that back. For all I knew, he was only attracted to humans, or maybe he hurt too much for that kind of thing at all. My mind raced with the usual 'what-if' conundrums: _Is this right? What if he got mad at me? What if he doesn't want to talk to me afterwards? What if he doesn't want to be my partner anymore?_ I reached out to him across the bed, uncertain. He was shaking, kicking his talons. Something was obviously wrong, as if the situation wasn't bad enough already. I placed my hand on his shoulder, taking a deep breath, like he'd taught me, and cleared my mind. This was something I needed to do.

"Hey, Zach." I didn't know why I said his actual name. It just felt right in the moment, I guess. He stopped moving, turning over. His eyes were half-open, and I could have sworn there were tears on his face, but it was too hard to tell in the dim lighting.

"...yeah, Ri?"

"You were having a nightmare again."

"..." He stared at me blankly. His beak was slightly ajar.

"You're crying."

"Oh." He blinked a few times. "Thanks…" he said, before starting to turn back over.

"Hey, wait..." I stopped him. It was now or never.

"Yeah, Ri?"

"I… I think, I, uh…" The sounds came out haphazardly. My mouth tasted dry, but it felt like it was full of mushy food. _I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot, _I beat myself about the head, cursing the stupid Butterfree flapping around in my stomach. I couldn't even say six dumb, worthless words. "You… I just, uh… I have a-"

"I know," he cut me off. "Come on. You can sleep with me... Just, don't worry, alright? It's okay. I... I do, too."

Relief flooded me like a waterfall, dousing all the little nagging fears rattling around in my head. I didn't say anything, nor did he. I did roll over next to him and close my eyes. He was warm, and his aura cleared up… soon, we were both asleep again, soundly until the sun rose the next morning. He didn't have another nightmare.


End file.
